Local Cultures – Global Spaces
Abstract
Kung Fu Hustle (Stephen Chow, 2004) is a film directed, scripted, produced and starred by Hong Kong filmmaker Stephen Chow. It was shot at Shanghai Chedun Film Park, with its background of Shanghai in the first half of the twentieth century, while its actual reflection is of Hong Kong in the 1960s and 1970s. As a highly depoliticized and de-culturalized film, it expresses a transcendent and universal humanitarian logic named “Kungfu” through its creative representation of the Kowloon Walled City into Pig Sty Alley. “Kungfu” connects the real with the fictional, the historical with the film, and became a possible portal to break through the banality of life and the constant passing of time. The argument is that this film is nostalgic, linking Shanghai and Hong Kong in the twentieth century back and forth. It is a nostalgia for Hong Kong’s anxiety of unstoppable time, which coincides with the “Fin-de-siècle Splendor” of Shanghai: both old Shanghai and floating Hong Kong have become fallen cities. No matter what they are about, they are irretrievable and can only rely on an “Other” for representation.
Xiaoyu Chen (07/1999, she/her), B.A. of Chinese Language and Literature at Fudan University (2021) and M.A. of Interdisciplinary Studies at New York University (2023). Mainly works as a graduate student in humanities, editor, and writer. Research interests primarily include Chinese modern literature and 20th-century cultural studies with a focus on sensory politics, urban studies and modernity. Have been working as an intern editor in Shanghai Mengya magazine since 2019, writing literature and film reviews as well as interviews for scholars.